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Friday, January 14, 2011

Sure, Luke Skywalker is a terrorist and a Jedi but there are loads of other reasons to hate him. Here are ten of the best:

1. He's an orphan.

Orphans are scary. Despite coming from broken homes and suffering from tragic pasts, these parentless kids always seem to discover that they're the one prophesied to realise some "noble" destiny involving destroying somebody's really carefully made plans by using magical powers they learned from some creepy old wizard guy who's secretly been "watching over" them their whole life.

2. He's always whinging about something.

Whether it's not being allowed to join the Rebel Alliance, or having to go to Tosche Station to pick up power converters, or having his adoptive parents brutally killed and then flame grilled by Stormtroopers, the kid manages to find the negative in any situation.

3. He has amazing magical powers...

And he doesn't do anything cool with them. Sure, he makes C-3PO levitate to impress a bunch of mutant teddy bears and can do some pretty sweet jumps but why doesn't he crush them all with the power of his mind, or even just mentally untie the ropes that bind him? How come he can't do a simple Jedi mind trick on a giant space slug, or block Palpatine's Force lightning with his lightsaber like EVERY SINGLE PERSON did in the prequel trilogy?!

4. He has poor personal hygiene.

He goes swimming in trash compactors, sleeps in the hollowed out carcasses of tauntauns and, worst of all, spends much of his time living in swamps being ridden by a crazy old goblin. There is nobody in the galaxy who needs a bath more.

5. He got a medal for killing 1.3 million people.

For a "hero", Luke doesn't seem particularly racked with guilt as he walks up to receive his shiny gold medal for blowing up the Death Star 1, killing its 1.3+ million employees. Ummm.... did we miss something here? Everyone gets all judgey when we blow up a few evil planets but this guy gets a medal? Did he even try opening a dialogue or using an aggressive pamphlet-dropping campaign first?

6. The Force will be with him... always.

Apparently there is a BAD kind of killing people that makes you automatically turn to the Dark Side and a GOOD kind of killing a whole crapload of people that is OKAY by ghost Jedi and their midichlorian friends.

7. He wears black.

This is against all the rules of appropriate film costuming and is therefore confusing and wrong. EVERYONE knows good guys always wear white and bad guys always wear black. Here is an instructional pictograph we made to help illustrate the point:

8. He's not a good son.

When Darth Vader tells Luke he is his father, this should be a joyous moment for the younger Skywalker, who finally has a chance to get to know his old man. Unlike a lot of other deadbeat dads, Vader offers to spend quality time with his son doing fun father/son activities like ruling the Galaxy. Luke, of course, declines.

9. His feelings for his friends are strong. Especially for... sister.

Everyone in the Galaxy knows that Luke's feelings for his sister are a little more than brotherly. Want proof? They kissed. And Luke liked it. Want more? Name any other hero in the history of cinema who goes THREE MOVIES without a love interest. Luke is just waiting for Han to slip up and then BAM! He'll slip right in with the old "I'm your brother, I just want to support you" routine. Luke Skywalker? Try Luke Slywalker.

10. He doesn't know a good deal when he sees it.

Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine both offer Luke a chance to co-rule the ENTIRE FUCKING GALAXY. To be clear, this entails lots of money, three personal chefs and your own personal parking space on the Death Star for your executive TIE Fighter. Luke says no. Seriously, who does that???

I would argue that he can be excused from not doing cool stuff with the Force, since he didn't have proper training like everyone in the prequels did. As you said, he was trained by a "creepy goblin thing" in a swamp.Great post, though.